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  <div class="section" id="module-HTMLParser">
<h1>20.1. <tt class="xref docutils literal"><span class="pre">HTMLParser</span></tt> &#8212; Simple HTML and XHTML parser<a class="headerlink" href="#module-HTMLParser" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h1>
<div class="admonition note">
<p class="first admonition-title">Note</p>
<p class="last">The <tt class="xref docutils literal"><span class="pre">HTMLParser</span></tt> module has been renamed to <tt class="xref docutils literal"><span class="pre">html.parser</span></tt> in Python
3.0.  The <a class="reference external" href="../glossary.html#term-to3"><em class="xref">2to3</em></a> tool will automatically adapt imports when converting
your sources to 3.0.</p>
</div>
<p>
<span class="versionmodified">New in version 2.2.</span></p>
<p id="index-360">This module defines a class <a title="HTMLParser.HTMLParser" class="reference internal" href="#HTMLParser.HTMLParser"><tt class="xref docutils literal"><span class="pre">HTMLParser</span></tt></a> which serves as the basis for
parsing text files formatted in HTML (HyperText Mark-up Language) and XHTML.
Unlike the parser in <a title="A parser for HTML documents. (deprecated)" class="reference external" href="htmllib.html#module-htmllib"><tt class="xref docutils literal"><span class="pre">htmllib</span></tt></a>, this parser is not based on the SGML parser
in <a title="Only as much of an SGML parser as needed to parse HTML. (deprecated)" class="reference external" href="sgmllib.html#module-sgmllib"><tt class="xref docutils literal"><span class="pre">sgmllib</span></tt></a>.</p>
<dl class="class">
<dt id="HTMLParser.HTMLParser">
<em class="property">
class </em><tt class="descclassname">HTMLParser.</tt><tt class="descname">HTMLParser</tt><a class="headerlink" href="#HTMLParser.HTMLParser" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
<dd><p>The <a title="HTMLParser.HTMLParser" class="reference internal" href="#HTMLParser.HTMLParser"><tt class="xref docutils literal"><span class="pre">HTMLParser</span></tt></a> class is instantiated without arguments.</p>
<p>An <a title="HTMLParser.HTMLParser" class="reference internal" href="#HTMLParser.HTMLParser"><tt class="xref docutils literal"><span class="pre">HTMLParser</span></tt></a> instance is fed HTML data and calls handler functions when tags
begin and end.  The <a title="HTMLParser.HTMLParser" class="reference internal" href="#HTMLParser.HTMLParser"><tt class="xref docutils literal"><span class="pre">HTMLParser</span></tt></a> class is meant to be overridden by the
user to provide a desired behavior.</p>
<p>Unlike the parser in <a title="A parser for HTML documents. (deprecated)" class="reference external" href="htmllib.html#module-htmllib"><tt class="xref docutils literal"><span class="pre">htmllib</span></tt></a>, this parser does not check that end tags
match start tags or call the end-tag handler for elements which are closed
implicitly by closing an outer element.</p>
</dd></dl>

<p>An exception is defined as well:</p>
<dl class="exception">
<dt id="HTMLParser.HTMLParseError">
<em class="property">
exception </em><tt class="descclassname">HTMLParser.</tt><tt class="descname">HTMLParseError</tt><a class="headerlink" href="#HTMLParser.HTMLParseError" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
<dd>Exception raised by the <a title="HTMLParser.HTMLParser" class="reference internal" href="#HTMLParser.HTMLParser"><tt class="xref docutils literal"><span class="pre">HTMLParser</span></tt></a> class when it encounters an error
while parsing.  This exception provides three attributes: <tt class="xref docutils literal"><span class="pre">msg</span></tt> is a brief
message explaining the error, <tt class="xref docutils literal"><span class="pre">lineno</span></tt> is the number of the line on which
the broken construct was detected, and <tt class="xref docutils literal"><span class="pre">offset</span></tt> is the number of
characters into the line at which the construct starts.</dd></dl>

<p><a title="HTMLParser.HTMLParser" class="reference internal" href="#HTMLParser.HTMLParser"><tt class="xref docutils literal"><span class="pre">HTMLParser</span></tt></a> instances have the following methods:</p>
<dl class="method">
<dt id="HTMLParser.HTMLParser.reset">
<tt class="descclassname">HTMLParser.</tt><tt class="descname">reset</tt><big>(</big><big>)</big><a class="headerlink" href="#HTMLParser.HTMLParser.reset" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
<dd>Reset the instance.  Loses all unprocessed data.  This is called implicitly at
instantiation time.</dd></dl>

<dl class="method">
<dt id="HTMLParser.HTMLParser.feed">
<tt class="descclassname">HTMLParser.</tt><tt class="descname">feed</tt><big>(</big><em>data</em><big>)</big><a class="headerlink" href="#HTMLParser.HTMLParser.feed" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
<dd>Feed some text to the parser.  It is processed insofar as it consists of
complete elements; incomplete data is buffered until more data is fed or
<a title="HTMLParser.HTMLParser.close" class="reference internal" href="#HTMLParser.HTMLParser.close"><tt class="xref docutils literal"><span class="pre">close()</span></tt></a> is called.</dd></dl>

<dl class="method">
<dt id="HTMLParser.HTMLParser.close">
<tt class="descclassname">HTMLParser.</tt><tt class="descname">close</tt><big>(</big><big>)</big><a class="headerlink" href="#HTMLParser.HTMLParser.close" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
<dd>Force processing of all buffered data as if it were followed by an end-of-file
mark.  This method may be redefined by a derived class to define additional
processing at the end of the input, but the redefined version should always call
the <a title="HTMLParser.HTMLParser" class="reference internal" href="#HTMLParser.HTMLParser"><tt class="xref docutils literal"><span class="pre">HTMLParser</span></tt></a> base class method <a title="HTMLParser.HTMLParser.close" class="reference internal" href="#HTMLParser.HTMLParser.close"><tt class="xref docutils literal"><span class="pre">close()</span></tt></a>.</dd></dl>

<dl class="method">
<dt id="HTMLParser.HTMLParser.getpos">
<tt class="descclassname">HTMLParser.</tt><tt class="descname">getpos</tt><big>(</big><big>)</big><a class="headerlink" href="#HTMLParser.HTMLParser.getpos" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
<dd>Return current line number and offset.</dd></dl>

<dl class="method">
<dt id="HTMLParser.HTMLParser.get_starttag_text">
<tt class="descclassname">HTMLParser.</tt><tt class="descname">get_starttag_text</tt><big>(</big><big>)</big><a class="headerlink" href="#HTMLParser.HTMLParser.get_starttag_text" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
<dd>Return the text of the most recently opened start tag.  This should not normally
be needed for structured processing, but may be useful in dealing with HTML &#8220;as
deployed&#8221; or for re-generating input with minimal changes (whitespace between
attributes can be preserved, etc.).</dd></dl>

<dl class="method">
<dt id="HTMLParser.HTMLParser.handle_starttag">
<tt class="descclassname">HTMLParser.</tt><tt class="descname">handle_starttag</tt><big>(</big><em>tag</em>, <em>attrs</em><big>)</big><a class="headerlink" href="#HTMLParser.HTMLParser.handle_starttag" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
<dd><p>This method is called to handle the start of a tag.  It is intended to be
overridden by a derived class; the base class implementation does nothing.</p>
<p>The <em>tag</em> argument is the name of the tag converted to lower case. The <em>attrs</em>
argument is a list of <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">(name,</span> <span class="pre">value)</span></tt> pairs containing the attributes found
inside the tag&#8217;s <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">&lt;&gt;</span></tt> brackets.  The <em>name</em> will be translated to lower case,
and quotes in the <em>value</em> have been removed, and character and entity references
have been replaced.  For instance, for the tag <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">&lt;A</span>
<span class="pre">HREF=&quot;http://www.cwi.nl/&quot;&gt;</span></tt>, this method would be called as
<tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">handle_starttag('a',</span> <span class="pre">[('href',</span> <span class="pre">'http://www.cwi.nl/')])</span></tt>.</p>
<p>
<span class="versionmodified">Changed in version 2.6: </span>All entity references from <a title="Definitions of HTML general entities." class="reference external" href="htmllib.html#module-htmlentitydefs"><tt class="xref docutils literal"><span class="pre">htmlentitydefs</span></tt></a> are now replaced in the attribute
values.</p>
</dd></dl>

<dl class="method">
<dt id="HTMLParser.HTMLParser.handle_startendtag">
<tt class="descclassname">HTMLParser.</tt><tt class="descname">handle_startendtag</tt><big>(</big><em>tag</em>, <em>attrs</em><big>)</big><a class="headerlink" href="#HTMLParser.HTMLParser.handle_startendtag" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
<dd>Similar to <a title="HTMLParser.HTMLParser.handle_starttag" class="reference internal" href="#HTMLParser.HTMLParser.handle_starttag"><tt class="xref docutils literal"><span class="pre">handle_starttag()</span></tt></a>, but called when the parser encounters an
XHTML-style empty tag (<tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">&lt;a</span> <span class="pre">.../&gt;</span></tt>).  This method may be overridden by
subclasses which require this particular lexical information; the default
implementation simple calls <a title="HTMLParser.HTMLParser.handle_starttag" class="reference internal" href="#HTMLParser.HTMLParser.handle_starttag"><tt class="xref docutils literal"><span class="pre">handle_starttag()</span></tt></a> and <a title="HTMLParser.HTMLParser.handle_endtag" class="reference internal" href="#HTMLParser.HTMLParser.handle_endtag"><tt class="xref docutils literal"><span class="pre">handle_endtag()</span></tt></a>.</dd></dl>

<dl class="method">
<dt id="HTMLParser.HTMLParser.handle_endtag">
<tt class="descclassname">HTMLParser.</tt><tt class="descname">handle_endtag</tt><big>(</big><em>tag</em><big>)</big><a class="headerlink" href="#HTMLParser.HTMLParser.handle_endtag" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
<dd>This method is called to handle the end tag of an element.  It is intended to be
overridden by a derived class; the base class implementation does nothing.  The
<em>tag</em> argument is the name of the tag converted to lower case.</dd></dl>

<dl class="method">
<dt id="HTMLParser.HTMLParser.handle_data">
<tt class="descclassname">HTMLParser.</tt><tt class="descname">handle_data</tt><big>(</big><em>data</em><big>)</big><a class="headerlink" href="#HTMLParser.HTMLParser.handle_data" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
<dd>This method is called to process arbitrary data.  It is intended to be
overridden by a derived class; the base class implementation does nothing.</dd></dl>

<dl class="method">
<dt id="HTMLParser.HTMLParser.handle_charref">
<tt class="descclassname">HTMLParser.</tt><tt class="descname">handle_charref</tt><big>(</big><em>name</em><big>)</big><a class="headerlink" href="#HTMLParser.HTMLParser.handle_charref" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
<dd>This method is called to process a character reference of the form <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">&amp;#ref;</span></tt>.
It is intended to be overridden by a derived class; the base class
implementation does nothing.</dd></dl>

<dl class="method">
<dt id="HTMLParser.HTMLParser.handle_entityref">
<tt class="descclassname">HTMLParser.</tt><tt class="descname">handle_entityref</tt><big>(</big><em>name</em><big>)</big><a class="headerlink" href="#HTMLParser.HTMLParser.handle_entityref" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
<dd>This method is called to process a general entity reference of the form
<tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">&amp;name;</span></tt> where <em>name</em> is an general entity reference.  It is intended to be
overridden by a derived class; the base class implementation does nothing.</dd></dl>

<dl class="method">
<dt id="HTMLParser.HTMLParser.handle_comment">
<tt class="descclassname">HTMLParser.</tt><tt class="descname">handle_comment</tt><big>(</big><em>data</em><big>)</big><a class="headerlink" href="#HTMLParser.HTMLParser.handle_comment" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
<dd>This method is called when a comment is encountered.  The <em>comment</em> argument is
a string containing the text between the <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">--</span></tt> and <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">--</span></tt> delimiters, but not
the delimiters themselves.  For example, the comment <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">&lt;!--text--&gt;</span></tt> will cause
this method to be called with the argument <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">'text'</span></tt>.  It is intended to be
overridden by a derived class; the base class implementation does nothing.</dd></dl>

<dl class="method">
<dt id="HTMLParser.HTMLParser.handle_decl">
<tt class="descclassname">HTMLParser.</tt><tt class="descname">handle_decl</tt><big>(</big><em>decl</em><big>)</big><a class="headerlink" href="#HTMLParser.HTMLParser.handle_decl" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
<dd>Method called when an SGML declaration is read by the parser.  The <em>decl</em>
parameter will be the entire contents of the declaration inside the <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">&lt;!</span></tt>...<tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">&gt;</span></tt> markup.  It is intended to be overridden by a derived class; the base
class implementation does nothing.</dd></dl>

<dl class="method">
<dt id="HTMLParser.HTMLParser.handle_pi">
<tt class="descclassname">HTMLParser.</tt><tt class="descname">handle_pi</tt><big>(</big><em>data</em><big>)</big><a class="headerlink" href="#HTMLParser.HTMLParser.handle_pi" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
<dd><p>Method called when a processing instruction is encountered.  The <em>data</em>
parameter will contain the entire processing instruction. For example, for the
processing instruction <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">&lt;?proc</span> <span class="pre">color='red'&gt;</span></tt>, this method would be called as
<tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">handle_pi(&quot;proc</span> <span class="pre">color='red'&quot;)</span></tt>.  It is intended to be overridden by a derived
class; the base class implementation does nothing.</p>
<div class="admonition note">
<p class="first admonition-title">Note</p>
<p class="last">The <a title="HTMLParser.HTMLParser" class="reference internal" href="#HTMLParser.HTMLParser"><tt class="xref docutils literal"><span class="pre">HTMLParser</span></tt></a> class uses the SGML syntactic rules for processing
instructions.  An XHTML processing instruction using the trailing <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">'?'</span></tt> will
cause the <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">'?'</span></tt> to be included in <em>data</em>.</p>
</div>
</dd></dl>

<div class="section" id="example-html-parser-application">
<span id="htmlparser-example"></span><h2>20.1.1. Example HTML Parser Application<a class="headerlink" href="#example-html-parser-application" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h2>
<p>As a basic example, below is a very basic HTML parser that uses the
<a title="HTMLParser.HTMLParser" class="reference internal" href="#HTMLParser.HTMLParser"><tt class="xref docutils literal"><span class="pre">HTMLParser</span></tt></a> class to print out tags as they are encountered:</p>
<div class="highlight-python"><div class="highlight"><pre><span class="kn">from</span> <span class="nn">HTMLParser</span> <span class="kn">import</span> <span class="n">HTMLParser</span>

<span class="k">class</span> <span class="nc">MyHTMLParser</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">HTMLParser</span><span class="p">):</span>

    <span class="k">def</span> <span class="nf">handle_starttag</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="bp">self</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">tag</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">attrs</span><span class="p">):</span>
        <span class="k">print</span> <span class="s">&quot;Encountered the beginning of a </span><span class="si">%s</span><span class="s"> tag&quot;</span> <span class="o">%</span> <span class="n">tag</span>

    <span class="k">def</span> <span class="nf">handle_endtag</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="bp">self</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">tag</span><span class="p">):</span>
        <span class="k">print</span> <span class="s">&quot;Encountered the end of a </span><span class="si">%s</span><span class="s"> tag&quot;</span> <span class="o">%</span> <span class="n">tag</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>


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